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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Ok Joe, here you go!:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I Previously Wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>“Some do argue that this is a Christian view, but I'd have to
think it is a Christian view that has been somewhat secularized. Deism,
'enlightenment' categories, and the like, would seem to play a role in this choice
of language.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joe Writes:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>So the Founding Fathers were not Christians? And, since this is the
view that I believe, I am not a Christian either?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>No. I was just saying that I don’t think this statement was
specifically Christian. Some of the Founding Fathers were very biblical
Orthodox Christians, some were Christians who were attached to ideas that I do
not think reflect biblical Orthodox Christianity, some were Deists, and some
rejected Christianity. Of course, the majority and general trajectory of
the Founding Fathers was prominently that of Orthodox Christianity. But this
doesn’t entail anything particular about any given Founding Father.
As for what someone can believe and still be a Christian: salvation is through
Jesus Crucified and what He gives us, not through the perfect intellectual
works of our political theories or doctrine. Of course, believing sound
doctrine is important, but it is not always the best litmus test for knowing
God and being loved by God. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I Previously Wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>“And what of the epistemological issue: Dan Barker (<st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Wilson</st1:City></st1:place> debate) was
confident that a baby has rights once it received a social security
number. Until then, butcher the thing if you want. Do we have the ability
to determine where our rights begin or end? Ok, God gives people rights; but,
ummm, errr, that baby there isn't a person yet, so kill it.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Reasonable argument to me actually; assume that secularists have the
ability to determine the boundaries of human rights, and you get wonderfully
valid arguments, but valid arguments that have tyranny and slaughter waiting at
the end of a few more successful deductions. The French Revolution should
be enough history on this point. However, we do agree completely that
this is a religious view about morality and not a purely secular view.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joe Writes:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>All of this is nonsense. The so-called “epistemological
issue” crops up with any moral system -- yours as well as mine. I would
argue that Doug Wilson’s insistence (and apparently yours) that slavery
in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place>
was not as bad as earlier reports is absurd. But just because he reasons to
this absurd view on the basis of his (supposedly) Christian views does not mean
that Christianity is a corrupt moral system. Similarly, I am not Dan Barker.
Nor do I have a purely secular view of human rights. The slope is not as
slippery as you suggest.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>First of all, my analysis above does not exclude the possibility that
all moral ‘systems’ will have an epistemological issue or
problem. Note that I’m critiquing a theistic and nominally
Christian point of view here, not a secular point of view. So it would
seem that my analysis here would lend support to the claim that all moral
‘systems’ have an epistemic problem. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>However, with that said, I need to go on a point out the fact that a
Christian view of the world, which does not claim to be a competing
‘moral system,’ is actually not fraught with the kind of problem I
list above, regardless of whatever other epistemological issues you think it
might face (e.g. your problem with Plantinga and an epistemology of Grace). The
Christian view does not leave a vague reference to a generic Creator somehow
‘endowing’ people with undefined rights. Rather, the
Christian View proclaims the fact that God has been kind to us and specially
revealed his holy nature and how we can partake in that nature. Further,
we know we have ‘rights’ because we are made in God’s image;
we partake in God’s own dignity by creation. God’s holiness
and the way in which he is redemptively re-creating the world provide the
‘standards,’ patterns by which we are to treat one another along
with the proper use of the government’s ‘sword.’ Governments
only have authority to infringe on our freedom in so far as they receive this
authority from God; any government acting on its own authority is ultimately an
uncontrollable tyrant: hence Bush’s theocracy in the middle East. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Michael Originally Wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>“Joan and I are against bestiality for similar reasons I would
think; I doubt Joan is worried about the wrong done to a donkey when a man gets
on with it. But it is 'wrong.' Why is that? It is a perversion of something
holy. It is to make ugly that which is supposed to be beautiful. It is
objectively aesthetically grotesque. There is not ultimately a separation from
creational perversion and wrong doing, but I think there are important nuances
between the two.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joe Writes:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joan made this point but it is worth repeating. Donkeys cannot consent
to sex and that is why it is wrong to have sex with donkeys. Every instance of
human-animal sex is analogous to rape, I would argue. So there is an
explanation for why donkey-sex is wrong that cannot be used to support a
similar claim about “homosexuality.” Your overly generalized
conclusion does not follow.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>This seems like a very insufficient account of what we find intuitively
wrong with bestiality. For one, donkeys can consent to have sex since
they apparently do it all the time with one another. It would seem that
at the very least we could learn to discern donkey acceptance of sexual favors,
and therefore not be sinning against the donkey. And consent
doesn’t seem to get at sexual perversion in the first place. Not
only might I be able to get a donkey to consent to have sex with me, I might be
able to get a 6 year old girl to do so too. Molestation does is not analogous
to rape. Further, your standard for sexual wrong does not account for the
aesthetic connections between perverse behavior and morality. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>More importantly, just because we might be able to draw an analogy
between rape and bestiality does not mean we have given any explanation or
grounding for morality in general. I could just go on and say well,
what’s wrong with rape? If you said because morality requires
consent, then I would just go on and say well, what’s wrong with throwing
people in jail? We will still be left with needing a general ethical
theory. So what would you propose? Utilitarianism? What would
it be? What kind of proposed moral ‘system’ makes sense out
of sin/evil/good/right/wrong/beauty/judgement/praise the way a Christian world
does? What moral system provides true morality, true moral and political
authority? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Michael Previously Wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>“Christianity is not a theory, or an answer to an ethical
dilemma, or a system of morality. It is not something to be put in the
same category as utilitarianism or whatever other theory of ethics is out
there. The Christian Faith is a experiential, doctrinal, and liturgical
communion with a world of creation and recreation, death and resurrection,
eternal judgment and eternal glory. It is a relationship with the eternal
Trinity; it is a process of being renewed into the very image of the Son. But
this does not mean that Christianity does not therefore address things spoken
about in ethics class; it does, and it does so far more successfully and far
more profoundly than any current reductionistic ethical theory. I think there
are answers to all the questions you raise here.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joe Writes:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I agree with most of this. But I don't see any answer to my initial<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>questions: “Why not speak out, for instance, passionately about
the evils of masturbation? Why withhold the right to marriage from same-sex
couples yet allow couples like my wife and I, who are either unable or
unwilling to have children, to partake in this right?”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Let me rephrase the questions in another way. Count up the number of
sexual acts that you find “objectively aesthetically grotesque.” Of
these, I would venture to guess, “homosexual” acts are a relative
minority. (Some conservatives say that the “homosexual” population
is as little as 1-2%.) So there are all these other sexual acts --
masturbation, oral sex, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>(I’ll save the details) -- that are left unaddressed. Why not
address them? Clearly they constitute a much greater moral problem. While you
are up on your high horse of condemnation, why not cast the moral net more
widely, and offend a larger class of individuals?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>To go in your sequence:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I’m not sure masturbation is a great evil; it certainly would not
be on the level of sexual sin with others for three reasons: <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>1. It does not offer perversion of God’s design plan to the
extent as adultery and homosexuality and bestiality would. I won’t
bother defending this at the moment in the hopes of keeping the pornographic
level of this debate to a minimum.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>2. It does not involve a second partner; you would at most be sinning
against yourself and God and not against another person.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>3. It does not do significant emotional and psychological damage; it
does not destroy the intended design plan of sex, and therefore people, to the
same extent. Adultery is an incredibly destructive act, not only
potentially to one’s self, but to the married partner cheated on and any
children that have come from the marriage union that was destroyed by the
adultery. Adultery is a breaking of an intimate implicit relational bond;
it is usually, at the core, highly selfish, and careless of those it will hurt
the most. Also, as I mentioned elsewhere already, adultery and other
sexual sins lies against the nature of the Trinity and the nature of the
relationship between Jesus and the Church; sexual relations speak of very holy
things. Adultery would be the ultimate lie about the gospel; masturbation in
principle does not so directly and clearly damage other people and lie about
that which is holy.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>However, some Christians actually do speak out about masturbation, and
consider it a sin of selfishness against your spouse, so this might be a mute
point anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>As for not having children, it is true that children are a blessing and
that God has designed the world to have man/woman marriages that produce many
children. However, this does not mean that not having children is
inherently wrong. It can be wrong, such as in the case of a couple
refusing to have children because they don’t think children are a
blessing from God or because they are too caught up in a worldly life-style to
be inconvenienced. Also, a sexual relationship between a man and woman is
self-justifying. It is led on by holy and natural urges and not the
result of obedience to some moral requirement; the act itself is good and holy
as stated in Hebrews. This happened to be the subject of the sermon this
last Sunday by the way. And so, the goodness of a sexual relationship
does not have to be attached to a certain ‘end’ such as getting
pregnant; it is an end in itself; it stands alone.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I don’t have a clue as to what would be wrong with “oral
sex” Joe. You have a problem with it? It seems to be implied
in the Song of Solomon I believe. And if that doesn’t convince you,
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Wilson</st1:City></st1:place> is all
for it (!); what more justification could one need : -)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I agree that adultery and fornication and molestation pose a far
greater moral problem on one level. These are more prevalent (for the
time being; note my argument from classical times posed to Joan) and they are
more directly destructive. But these are preached against and discussed
far more in any Christian circles I’ve been in. In fact, my circles
don’t hardly ever talk about homosexuality because everyone just assumes
it is wrong and something to be pastorally dealt with when a Christian or a new
convert struggles with it. And of course, many people have been
converted to the Christian Faith and successfully changed their sexual
orientation. I really think the idea of Fundamentalists railing against
homosexuals is more of a Media sketch regarding the political and legal issue
of publicly embracing and encouraging not only homosexuality itself but even
homosexual marriages. Now I’m sure some Fundamentalists in the
Christian Right deserve this sort of criticism, but it certainly is unbalanced
to level the charge against all Christians who merely take the teaching of
God’s Word at face value: it is a sin. But so is pornography; and
the Christian Right gets all bent out of shape about that too when it begins to
be publicly endorsed. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Whew. That’s all for now. I’d be interested in
knowing your thoughts.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Thanks<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Michael Metzler<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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